Fan Mail
by Karmitara
Summary: While helping Tony clear his office, Peter stumbles upon a box of fan mail. Looking through the pages, Peter realizes he might have a confession to make...


"Welcome, Peter," Friday greeted as the teen stepped onto the elevator.

He beamed up at the security camera, "Hi, Friday! Where's Mr. Stark at?"

"In his office, cleaning; he's planning on expanding it and needs to move things out of the way."

"Oh cool!" The boy hummed as he leaned against the metal wall, "Does he need any help?"

"I am unsure. You will have to ask him yourself."

Peter nodded as the doors opened with a soft ding; he walked out and towards the offices, humming softly to himself.

"Someone's in a good mood," Tony replied as Peter entered, pausing in his work and standing up straight. "What's got you so chipper this afternoon?"

"Today was a good day," He smiled, going over to steal Tony's swivel chair, "I got an A plus on all of my tests, all the annoying people left me alone, and someone wrote a song about me."

"Someone wrote a song about you?" Tony's eyes brightened, looking at his protege with unmistakable pride. "That's great! How is it? Is it cool? What genre: rock, pop, rap?"

"Eh..." Peter glanced off to the side with a nervous chuckle, "It's nothing like any of your fan songs. Mine is more like... a commercial jingle."

Tony chuckled as he pulled up a holographic screen, starting his search for the song. "It's a start, kid. And it's still really cool - I'm proud of you."

The adult finally found the video on YouTube with an animatic to go with the song.

 _"Spider-Man, Spider-Man does whatever a spider can..."_

The two watched the video, Tony chuckling as he just knew that this song was going to be stuck in his head for a month - but one look at Peter's face told him that it was all worth it. Peter was smiling brightly as he watched the drawing of him swing from its webs across the screen, and that smile could make even a Grinch like him smile.

They replayed the video a few times before just sitting around and talking for a couple hours. Peter told Tony more about his day - "I turned around and there was Ned! He was just T-Posing right behind me and it was so creepy! He fell down laughing at me when I stuck to the ceiling..." - before asking if his mentor needed help in moving his stuff around.

"You know what? I think a little help would be great." Tony clapped a hand on his shoulder and started leading Peter to the boxes, "I need to get all of this moved to the spare room today."

"Ah, that's going to be so easy." Peter chuckled as he start walking to the work area. Really, it was easy, Peter just had to web a couple boxes together and he could then carry six at a time without breaking a sweat.

Tony watched the boy work as he chuckled, closing up a few more boxes. Why hadn't he thought to ask the kid for help sooner?

"This was is actually pretty heavy..." Peter mumbled as he picked up one of the boxes and about to add it with the others. Tony's eyes widened as he stood up and went to stop him.

"Kid, careful with that...!"

Peter froze as he looked at Tony, box still lifted in the air. He slowly lowered it, setting it gently on the desk. "Mr. Stark?"

"These aren't to be moved with the other files," Tony walked over, smiling slightly as he took off the lid, "this is my fan mail."

Peter beamed as he leaned over, eager to see the contents. All the letters and praise that the people sent Tony through the years would be great, especially if Tony had kept them and looked at them so fondly.

The teen blinked, confusion written clear on his face as he saw inside the box.

"Drawings?"

"Most of which are in crayon." Tony chuckled proudly, pulling one out to look at it. "Do you know how hard it is to draw in crayon?"

It took Peter a minute to figure out that all the drawings were from different kids that had sent in their art of him. The boy's eyes lit up for a second, gazing into the box with hope.

"Can I...?"

"Just be careful. I've had these in perfect condition for ten years now, I don't want that to change."

Peter nodded as he lifted a few drawings, laughing lightly at the greatly dramatized scenes that he passed. He was beginning to worry that what he was looking for wasn't there until he finally saw a very familiar colored corner. Slowly and gently, Peter pulled the drawing out, admiring the horrible craftsmanship.

"Wow, this is horrible..."

"Hey!" Tony frowned, disapproval all over his face. Peter realized then that Tony didn't know the connection yet. Deciding to be dramatic, Peter leaned up against the desk and looked at his mentor.

"Did I ever tell you the time I almost died when I was six?"

Tony blinked, his eyebrows scrunched together at the sudden topic change. "What?"

"There was this huge expo for one of my favorite scientists when I was a kid. My aunt and uncle bought me a ticket for my birthday, though it was the lowest on the VIP scale and we couldn't get into any of the panels, so we just walked around outside. It was getting late and the adult crowd were starting to come out, so May and Ben thought it was time to go home. We were just starting to leave when there was this huge explosion... People started running and screaming and I got knocked away from Ben."

Peter traced his finger over the small red and gold figure in the drawing with a smile, too embarrassed and shy to see what Tony's expression was. "I was in this plastic cosplay May had bought me, it was so cheaply made but cost so much... I was convinced that I was the real hero I was dressed as. So when this giant robot flew down into the crowd in front of me, I didn't think twice about trying to shoot a repulsor at it. I was about to get blown away if it hadn't been for my hero appearing behind me and shooting the robot.

"That's what made me want to start helping people, I wanted to be a hero too. I wanted to save people. I never took that suit off for the longest time; and when I decided to draw a picture of that night, the side of the plastic arm broke and jerked the crayon slightly." Peter held up the drawing again, pointed to the corner that had a red streak into the gray sidewalk. "I was so mad at that, but May said Iron Man would still appreciate it. So we sent it off. I never knew if it reached its destination until today."

Tony's brows drew together, his mind traveling through time to remember if he could recall the event. The expo with killer robots would be that fight with Hammer... His eyes widened as he looked at the kid.

"That was you?"

Peter grinned and nodded, "Yep. Can you believe it?"

"Hardly. You were so cute as a kid, what happened?"

The two laughed for a second as Peter looked at his drawing. "I can't believe that you kept this after eight years..."

"I can't believe you never told me we met before." Tony went to stand next to Peter, looking at the drawing and ruffling the boy's hair. "Knowing you, something like that would have been mentioned at least seventy times."

"I was trying to play it cool," Peter laughed, shaking his head. "Plus, I didn't know if you'd remember it or not... It would have been embarrassing if you hadn't."

Tony watched Peter's blush grow slightly, smiling softly as he wrapped his arm around Peter's shoulder and pulled him into his side. "I remember it, kid. No way I could forget my youngest fan."

 **A/N: because I need happiness in my life again after watching the Avengers 4: End Game trailer… Have some mindless and sloppily written IronDad/SpiderSon fluff.**

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"Hey, Mr. Stark!" Peter greeted as he walked into the man's office, his eyes scanning the room. "Wow, this looks so much cooler now...!"

"You saying it didn't look cool before?" Tony raised an eyebrow at him, a teasing smirk in place as he stood from his chair.

Peter's eyes widened as she quickly shook his head, "No! I just meant that it's even better than before! Not that it was bad before, just like having ice cream then having ice cream with toppings!"

Tony rolled his eyes and went to ruffle the boy's hair affectionately, "I'm teasing, kid. Calm down."

Peter spent the next few seconds of walking to the elevators apologizing before Tony stopped him and started to turn back to his office.

"I forgot the papers on my desk, I'll be-"

"No sweat, I'll get them!" Peter was already running back to the office before Tony could even object.

"Papers, papers..." He walked up to the desk, seeing a small stack of papers front and center, grinning as he grabbed them. In his rush to leave, the corner of a page caught on one of the picture frames on Tony's desk, knocking it backwards. Peter's eyes widened as he quickly caught it before it fell to the floor, sighing in relief.

He started to put it back in place, but the childish design of the frame and a colored corner of the picture caught his attention. A small smile started to form on his face as he set in back on the desk gently before leaving, a certain bounce in his step as he left.

While Tony's desk didn't have many pictures on it, it did hold a selected few; one of him and Pepper about to kiss as Tony held up a branch of mistletoe, one of Rhodey sleeping on a sofa with makeup sloppily put on his face, and one of Peter and Tony as Peter held up a Decathalon trophy. All of them were in sleek black frames and matched the style of the room.

The newest addition to the desk pictures was the complete opposite. The picture inside was drawn in crayon, the people a couple steps up from being stick figures. On the gray ground on the picture was a red streak trailing from Iron Man's boot to the bottom corner, the paper creased slightly even behind the glass. The frame, much like the picture it held, was different from the others; it was bulky and white, little clouds and smiley faces outlining the sides. The words "Daddy and Me" were written at the top in multiple colors.

It didn't fit in with the other pictures there, or the design of the room, but Tony "Dad" Stark would fight anyone who tried to take that away from him.


End file.
